Amrit Rai Bio
Amrit Rai
The Line Paintings
My art used to be about my inner life but thankfully some things get simpler with age. As that inner life has grown more spacious – The spill-over of it into my art has become more refined. It is enough now to become fascinated with line, color and placement, and any meaning made comes from those elements relating to each other in a shared space.
Still, art being a mirror does reflect my inner life even if not by volition. The truth is that what wants to be expressed has very little to do with subjective narrative and everything to do with emptiness and space.
Color, line and occasionally pattern assert themselves out of a listening for what and where they want to emerge. One might suppose that the line paintings are decorative, but decoration is never at the forefront of my motivation or process. The lines are both subject and object to me. They come from the desire to reduce rather than make meaning. They are born from nature and instinct, the way a flower emerges out of the ground from a seed lying deep below it.
Painting now is closer to how it was for me as a child. I am propelled by the act itself and my disappearance in it— sensing, seeing, placing, and emptiness.
Amrit Rai
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Exhibitions & Collections
EXHIBITION HISTORY
2011 Amrit Rai, Hillside Gardens, Mill Valley, CA
1999 Formless, Freddie Fong Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA
1997 Recent paintings, Freddie Fong Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA
Spirituality in Art, Freddie Fong Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA
1993 Artists Images of AIDS, College of Marin Fine Arts Gallery, Kentfield, CA
1992 Solo Exhibition, Barclay Simpson Fine Arts, Lafayette, CA
Barclay Simpson Fine Arts group show, Barclay Simpson Fine Arts, Lafayette, CA
1991 10th Anniversary Show, Barclay Simpson Fine Arts, Lafayette, CA
1990 Amrit Rai, Janus Galley, Santé Fe, NM
LA/90, International Contemporary Art Fair, Los Angeles, CA
Exhibited by Barclay Simpson Fine Arts.
1989 Art London 89, International Art Fair, London, England
Barclay Simpson Fine Arts, Lafayette, CA
COLLECTIONS ( Selected)
Hans Schoepflin, Basel, Switzerland
Archer McComas & Lageson, Walnut Creek, CA
Sharon & Barclay Simpson, Orinda, CA
Vicky Tong, London, England
Cho J.K., London, England
Gil & Ann Berkeley, Lafayette, CA
Susan & Al Spore, Moraga, CA
Freddie Fong, San Francisco, CA
Patricia Chacon, London, England
Namita Gill, Victoria, Australia
Randi & Jonathan Gray, San Francisco, CA
COMMISSIONS
2012 Hillside Gardens Cottage, 3 paintings
2011 Schoepflin Stiftung, Loerrach, Germany. Large mixed media Painting.
1995 Vertrauen, 39 “Channeled symbols” used in a book of poetry by Gertrud Bianchi-Bauer, published in Germany in 1996
1988 Ianetti Lanzone, 40 Collages for a hotel client in Tokyo
AWARDS AND HONORS
Excellence in Drawing Award. Spring annual
Judge: Justine Limpus Parish 1983
Distinction in the Arts, Toms River North, toms River, NJ
ARTICLES AND REVIEWS (Limited)
Rena Jana, “One to watch: Amrit Rai”, Flash Art October 1997, Photos of The Sutra series, courtesy of Freddie Fong.
Rena Jana, “ Spirituality in Art at Freddie Fong”, Asian Art News, July/August 1997, Photo and Commentary.
Diablo Best of the East Bay, July 1992, “Best Art Gallery”, Images and Commentary mention.
David Bell, “Anniversary shows Span 20 Years of Change”, Journal North, Dec. 1990
Jeffrey Thrift, “ The Few From U.S. Shine in U.K. art Fair”, Art Business News, 1989
Carol Fowler, “ Time Out”, Contra Costa Times, photo and commentary, Nov. 1987
Carol Fowler, “Amrit Rai’s Abstract Exhibit shows colorful experimentation” Contra Costa Times, 11/16/87.
Carol Fowler, “Provocative exhibit is all down in black and white”, Contra Costa times, 11/30/87